


Snow's Council Considers Regina

by Ael_tRlailiiu



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-09 00:18:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1961691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ael_tRlailiiu/pseuds/Ael_tRlailiiu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a missing scene set in the Enchanted Forest during 3.13, in which Snow, Charming, and the others discuss how they're going to deal with Regina going forward.  I feel as if certain aspects of how other characters treat her at this point is... surprising, given their history, and this is my attempt to rationalize that. Think of it as in-character meta if you like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow's Council Considers Regina

As the last of evening's light faded, Regina headed off toward the secret entrance to the keep, straight-backed and incongruous in her finery.

“What are we going to _do_ with her?” David asked. “I mean, assuming that we get the castle back, and so on.”

“We keep her with us.” Snow watched Regina disappear into the darkness. Her brows knitted in thought.

“Seriously?” He glanced at her. “If you want a pet that dangerous, we could get a wyvern. She'd kill us all in heartbeat if it meant getting Henry back. And you heard her the other day – 'I married into it.' How about _murdered_ into it.”

“Believe me, I heard.” She touched her bow. “She did call it 'our' castle, though. That's something.”

“When she's surrounded by our people and uncertain of how the ground lies? Sure. Leaning circumspection isn't the same thing as actually changing.”

“I think it goes a little deeper than that. That doesn't mean she hasn't got a long way to go.” She sighed. “After all that's happened, she still doesn't think she's done anything wrong. But she has too much power for us to just ignore her. Perhaps now would be the best time to discuss the situation.”

The usual suspects gathered—she might as well call them the Privy Council, now that they were back. Snow met Red's eyes, glanced the way Regina had gone and then back to her friend. Red nodded; she had seen the green-cloaked figure follow the queen. Whatever Regina had in mind, it wouldn't go unobserved.

“We're home,” Snow said. Not how she wanted it, not how any of them had wanted it, and she paused to make sure her voice would stay firm. “And we have some decisions to make. The sooner the better.”

“Such as, what we're going to do about Regina.” Charming folded his arms. “Everything's happened very fast lately, but soon she'll have time to think, to make a plan. We need to have a path forward ready before that.”

“I'm really not sure what I think about this united front thing,” Red said. “How are we ever supposed to trust her? A couple of weeks ago she was ready to destroy the whole town.” On Red's shoulder, Jiminy chirped unhappy agreement.

“They were full weeks,” Snow said. “But that's not the point. We're not going to trust her. We're going to keep an eye on her. Regina is... complicated.”

“Why not keep an eye on her in prison?” Leroy asked.

“With Rumplestiltskin gone, we don't have one that can hold her.” It occurred to her wonder where Maleficent was. Better take one witch at a time, if they were given the chance. “And I don't think we need one. She takes a prison with her everywhere she goes.”

“Don't tell me you've started feeling sorry for her. She's a spoiled brat who should have had her hide tanned a few more times than happened,” Granny Lucas opined. “Happy to take up the slack there now. Give her a few years scrubbing floors and—”

“No,” Snow said. “She knows what discipline is, that's not the problem. And her pride and her power are too closely linked for her to take any kind of punishment.”

“What's left, then? We coddle her and curtsey because otherwise she'll kill us all? What did we even have a war for?!”

“So that we could make the _really_ hard decisions.” Snow smiled. “It's not fair. I know that as well as anyone. Fair would have been putting a dagger in her heart when we stood beside my father's coffin. Fair is... not a possibility, right now. Maybe someday it will be.” What would fair even begin to look like so many years and so many deaths later? “This is not a problem we can solve that way. Regina is like that tree of hers. She has spent so many years being pruned and shaped—by Cora, by Rumplestiltskin, by herself eventually, that no one will ever know what she might have been without that. She's been surrounded by walls that choked off the light.

“No one can _make_ her change, or even really encourage her. She'll take that as an attack. Even if she wants to do it—and I'm not sure that she does, not yet, not truly—she can't change quickly. No one could. Under the right pressure, she might try, but she would break.” She suspected that only Henry might supply that kind of pressure in any case. “We would end up right back where we started, and it would be worse than ever before. It's going to take time, and it's not going to be easy.”

“So what's your plan?” Red asked. “Assuming that she does come back alive.”

“We take it slow. She stays at the castle with us, once we have it. She gets to remain Her Majesty. We include her in everything we do.”

“What?! This is stupid,” Leroy said. “After everything she's done, why should _we_ be the ones who have to—”

“Because there is no one else to do it,” Snow said. “And this will only work if we are _all_ on board with it. If we push her away, isolate her, if she so much as  feels threatened in any way? She makes herself out to be the victim again, we become her enemies again, and maybe she'll come up with something even worse than the Dark Curse. This is like a river changing course. It will take time,” she repeated. Perhaps all those cursed years in the classroom had not been wasted. “The only way she will _ever_ understand that there is another way to live is by _seeing_ it around her every day.”

Charming nodded, but with a hesitation. “Show her what hope looks like in action, and maybe one of these days she'll get the idea?”

“She will learn, whether she even knows she's doing it. It will happen through the little examples we can all make, all the time, of how good people _choose_ to behave. In how we treat each other.”

“And what do we do when she... chooses differently?” Granny said, eyebrows raised.

Snow shook her head. “I don't think she will. Not when it doesn't get her anything she wants. If that changes, we will find a way. But right now, she's hurting,” she went on talking over Leroy's snort, “and she wants to wall herself off. We don't let her do that. We take down the wall, and let the light do its work.”

“Better brush up on my curtseys, then,” Granny muttered.

Snow looked around and saw scowls but no outright dissension. “Now. We should be ready for whatever news she brings back, or when the protection spell goes down.”

With a murmur of assent, the others scattered.

“Not that you're wrong, but... why is it never the easy way.” David sighed.

Snow looked up at him sideways. “I don't know. Ask Merlin?”

“Touche.”

They took their positions again to keep watch on the castle. _Their_ castle, Snow corrected herself. One small step toward putting things right.

**Author's Note:**

> My first tiny little piece for this fandom. Guess I'm doomed.


End file.
